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UK’s commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons

The second Global Disability Summit took place from 16 to 17 February 2022. During the summit governments and other organisations committed to various actions aimed at effecting real change for persons with disabilities.

In 2018, the UK co-hosted the first Global Disability Summit with Kenya. A number of commitments were made to strengthen disability inclusion. At the 2022 Summit the UK government made 18 additional commitments.

The UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009. Section 2 of the Library briefing paper The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: UK implementation (CBP07367) provides detailed background on the Convention and investigations up to 2020.

This debate pack includes a brief timeline of investigations and reports under the Convention and an update on events since the Library paper was last updated in November 2020. This includes the follow-up report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ 2016 inquiry covering both 2020 and 2021 and the launch of the National Disability Strategy 2021.

Information about the situation of disabled people globally, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on disabled people, and UK aid and diplomatic efforts to promote disability inclusion worldwide, can be found in the Library paper, Disability, development and UK aid (CBP09396).

The UK government launched a disability inclusion strategy in 2018, setting out how they would support and work with people with disabilities worldwide. To mark the second global disability summit the UK Government launched its new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) disability inclusion and rights strategy, to cover the period from 2022 to 2030.

As well as further detail on the above points the debate pack also contains links to relevant parliamentary material.